by Patrick L. Cahalan

Menu

Hidden Gems

At first glance you’ll probably guess that this was taken somewhere in Europe, and is several hundred years old.

Not so much.

This is actually less than 10 miles from Facebook’s headquarters, inside the city limits of Palo Alto, CA, in the heart of Silicon Valley.

But you wouldn’t know if unless you did your homework, or lived in the area, or got damn lucky. It’s actually right off the Page Mill Rd. exit of I-280, on old Page Mill Road. The name of this bit of wacky is Frenchman’s Tower, named after the nutty Frenchman who built it around 1875 as, depending on who you believe, a property marker, or to harbor the French Empress.

Like I said, the guy was wack-a-doo.

But fun things like this exist all over the place – it’s usually a matter of doing your homework and digging for them.

I’ve found the following to be helpful:

Internet (duh). 30 years ago this fab resource didn’t exist. but now we have Pinterest, Facebook groups, Flickr, etc. etc.